Murray Gold

Murray Gold – Composer Profile

Murray Gold has been nominated for a BAFTA four times in the category Best Original Television Music, for Vanity Fair (1999), Queer as Folk (2000), Casanova (2006) and Doctor Who (2008). His score for the BAFTA winning film Kiss of Life was awarded the Mozart Prize of the 7th Art by a French jury at Aubagne in 2003. He has also been nominated five times by the Royal Television Society in categories relating to music for television, winning twice.

He has worked with Russell T Davies, the former writer and executive producer of Doctor Who, many times in the past on projects such as A Very English Scandal (starring Hugh Grant), Casanova (starring David Tennant), The Second Coming (starring Christopher Eccleston), and Queer as Folk series 1 and 2. He also provided the incidental music for the 2000 version of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) alongside James Bond composer David Arnold, who provided the theme tune.

He wrote the theme tune for the Channel 4 series Shameless and scored the C4 period drama The Devil’s Whore. More recently Gold scored another David Tennant series, BBC1’s Single Father. In this, Gold opted for a more popular music style ensemble rather than writing for orchestra.

In 2014, Gold scored the BBC series The Musketeers and Russell T Davies’ Cucumber, as well as the repeat series of the highly successful Last Tango In Halifax. Murray also scored the BBC Natural History series Life Story, the crime drama Scott & Bailey for ITV and is about to embark on Series 9 of Dr Who, with the new Doctor being played by Peter Capaldi.

Since 2005, Gold has served as musical director for the wildly successful re-imagining of the BBC’s Doctor Who. In this capacity, he created a new arrangement of the show’s theme, (originally composed by Ron Grainer), and also composes the show’s incidental music. Gold also wrote the theme tunes for Doctor Who spin-offs The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood, and composes music for the latter series alongside Ben Foster. He also arranged the theme tunes to Totally Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential, both of which are variations on the Doctor Who theme itself. Gold has created, arranged and orchestrated three special live concerts for the music from Doctor Who. The first, Doctor Who: A Celebration, was played at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff in 2006; the second, the 2008 Doctor Who Prom, was part of the BBC Proms on 24 July 2008 at the Royal Albert Hall in London; the third, the 2010 Doctor Who Prom, was part of the BBC Proms hold on 24 and 25 July 2010 at the Royal Albert Hall again. In March 2010, Murray’s Doctor Who soundtrack entered UK radio station Classic FM’s Hall of Fame as that year’s second highest new entry.

Gold has scored a number of British and American films, including Death at a Funeral directed by Frank Oz and Mischief Night, directed by Penny Woolcock. Other projects include 2006’s film Alien Autopsy and the 2009 drama feature Veronika Decides to Die.

In 2001, his radio play Electricity was given the Imison Award — named after former BBC radio drama script editor Richard Imison — for best new. It subsequently transferred to the West Yorkshire Playhouse and was performed with Christopher Eccleston in the lead role. Others of his plays include 50 Revolutions performed by the Oxford Stage Company at the Whitehall Theatre, London in 2000 and Resolution at Battersea Arts Centre in 1994. Gold also wrote the radio play Kafka: The Musical, broadcast on Easter Sunday 2011 on BBC Radio 3, starring David Tennant. It won the 2013 Tinniswood Award for the Best Original Radio Drama.